At the occasion of the imminent release of the Snap Traveller e-book (Influence Marketing for hotels), we invite you to discover the contribution of Josiah Mackenzie through this exclusive interview.
For those who don’t know him yet, Josiah Mackenzie works in ReviewPro, he is an expert of customer reviews and social strategies, it also runs the blog Hotel Marketing Strategies which is a reference in the industry.
I will let you discover his interview below. Until the release of the e-book you can already sign up here: E-Book Influence Marketing for Hotels
1. In your analysis and work influencers are a big part of a hotel’s popularity. How would you delineate an Influencer Marketing strategy?
An influencer strategy first requires building something that the world’s leading tastemakers will be attracted to. Leading with design. Something ahead of the curve. Different. Maybe it’s the architecture. Maybe it’s the room design. Maybe you’re introducing a new twist on the traditional guest experience. Maybe you’ve assembled a team of people that will make this hotel different.
Think about your product design. Then, it’s about getting in front of the right people.
An “influencer marketing strategy” reaches those people that others look to for recommendations. Their advice is trusted. The social web gives us various metrics that we can use to evaluate the likelihood that advice will be acted on – with companies such as Klout aggregating retweets, likes, and other social signals to identify those mavens of culture.
Once you’ve identified influential people, you need to decide on which influencers are the best fit for your brand concept. Just because someone is influential in one circle doesn’t mean they will sway opinion for the people that matter to you – your potential future guests and audience. Identifying the target influencers you want to engage with requires a strong understanding of your brand concept: what you are and are not. (Hint: It’s okay to be polarizing)
Once you identify which influencers you want to reach out to, you need to decide how you engage with them. Are you looking for their input? Do you need them to stay at your hotel? Some sort of creative collaboration could pay dividends for your hotel marketing strategy. We’ve entered an environment where hotels – and every other business – need to think like media companies – so creating with influencers and having them amplify your collaboration could bring valuable exposure.